Her Every Pleasure (33 page)

“I knew you’d come for me. I knew you would do whatever it took, even though I had fired you from your post.”

“I did not come as your bodyguard,” he whispered.

“I know.” She hugged him a little more tightly and squeezed her eyes shut. “Oh, darling, I’m so sorry that you had to break your vow. I so did not want for you to have to do that.”

“For you, gladly.”

“I was trying to protect you,” she confessed in a strangled voice. “Every day that’s passed, I’ve felt a deeper bond with you. And yet everything’s turning more dangerous, and you’re my first line of defense. I couldn’t bear to lose you, like I’d lost my father and brothers and Leon. I care for you too much. I know I’m a fool. First, I dragged you into this and then I started to realize that I wanted you out of it for fear of anything happening to you. But I knew if I told you so, you would never back down and never quit.”

She sniffled, tears in her eyes. Gabriel set her back a little and searched her face.

“When I saw you with Alexa, I seized my opportunity to send you away,” she confessed. “Otherwise I might not have had the strength to let you go. That’s why I would not listen to your apologies, and why I would not give you a second chance. Oh, darling, I
know
you, and I know what Alexa is—was,” she corrected herself, flinching. “I know she was up to her old tricks and that it wasn’t your doing. But what choice did I have? Or so I thought. It seemed the only way to protect you. All this, the assassins, it’s my problem, not yours. The more I care for you, the more I know that you deserve to live in peace. You deserve to be happy. That’s all I wanted.”

“Sophia.” He said her name barely audibly as he let out a slow exhalation. “Don’t you understand?” He took her face between his hands with a stare full of fierce tenderness. “Being near you makes me happy. That’s all I want. I can’t believe you thought you were protecting me.”

“You must think it rather amusing, in hindsight,” she said with a somber smile. “Obviously, you can take care of yourself. I didn’t know what you were capable of—I’ve never seen anything like that.”

“I hope you never do again. Sophia. My sweet girl.” He hugged her gently. “Don’t worry about protecting me. That’s my job, all right?”

She returned his embrace with fresh tears in her eyes. “Please don’t say you feel damned for my sake.”

“No. I see it differently now.”

“You do?”

He nodded and pulled her onto his lap. “It started while we were tracking you. Thanks for all of your excellent clues, by the way, you brilliant creature.” He kissed her temple. “At any rate, it all came clear to me on the way up this mountain.”

“What came clear?”

“It wasn’t the act of killing itself that had me destined for a fiery place,” he murmured in a musing tone, his gaze turning faraway. “It was the way I used to think about it and treat it, in my mind. Almost like a sport,” he admitted grimly. “Not that I ever enjoyed killing. But I took a certain pride in my skill and I desired to be the best.”

“What’s wrong with that? Of course you want to win, especially when your life is at stake—and those of your men.”

“Well, all I know is that there is a greater purpose in it for me now. What the hell do I care how much of India England controls on any given day?” He sent her a wry glance with his grim admission, but did not retract his words. Instead, he shook his head. “But saving you?” He paused. “Back at the farmhouse, I was trying to escape the past and change what I was, but tonight, I am glad of every single one of my abilities, even if I should be damned for it. Because here you are, alive and safe, and that is all I care about.”

She cupped his face. “You could never be damned, Gabriel, not if there is any justice in this world or the next, and if you were, then I would go there with you and we would have a grand old time. Roasting chestnuts on the flames. As long as we were together, how bad could it be?”

He smiled at her for a long moment, his gaze moving wistfully over her face.

“What?” she murmured.

“You’re adorable.” He caressed her cheek, his smile fading. His touch trailed along her jaw. “All I know is that I won’t deny what I am anymore. Or how I feel about you.”

Butterflies danced in her belly at his words.

“You,” he went on, “now, you are a cause, my beautiful friend, that I can fight for without the slightest compunction.”

“Am I a cause?”

“You are,” he whispered. “You know you are, one that any man would be eager to follow. So beautiful and smart. So brave, with your willingness to stand up to these bastards and to fight for something larger than yourself. You inspire me,” he said haltingly. “I want to help you however I can. Not merely because the mission is just, but because of how much the whole thing means to you…and how much you mean to me.”

His words melted her. “I thought you said a bodyguard can’t do his job if there are…emotional entanglements.”

“Yes, well, that is one school of thought on the matter.”

“There’s another?”

“To my mind, there is.” He took her hand and kissed it. “When a man cares intensely, that can also be a formidable weapon.”

“Is that what I saw tonight?”

He nodded, a steely hardness flickering in his eyes with the recollection of the violence he had wreaked on the enemy. Then he shook his head, lowering his gaze. “God, I have been trying so hard to keep you at arm’s length.”

“Why?”

“Because you are a royal princess! You will be a queen—”

“So? I am also a woman.”

“Believe me, I know.”

“I have yearned to be closer to you.”

“And I you. Sophia, I’ve never felt this way before about anyone—but if an alliance with Denmark is going to be what’s best for Kavros—”

“I am what’s best for Kavros,” she whispered emphatically. “And you’re what’s best for me—and I’m what’s best for you. I know I am.” She lifted his chin with her fingertips, forcing him to meet her gaze. She searched his eyes, unable to hold back her heart any longer. “I love you. Oh, Gabriel, I’ve loved you ever since your first conversation with that silly kitten.”

Staring at her intensely, he lifted his hand to caress her face with the lightest touch. He looked overwhelmed by her words, and shook his head. “I will always be yours.” He shuddered. “I thought I’d lost you.”

“No. You saved me. Just like I knew you would. We belong together, Gabriel. Tell me you know it, too.”

“I love you, Sophia. I am so caught up in you I could die for want of you.”

“Don’t die. You’ve already done that,” she teased in a low tone. “You came back to live for me, live
with
me. As my husband, and my mate.”

“How can I be your husband?” he asked barely audibly, his expression guarded but his soulful eyes so full of longing.

“Darling,” she chided, “you think too much. Kiss me.”

He did. As his lips pressed hers, she could feel his trembling restraint. It maddened her. Why was he still holding back even now? It would not do.

She gripped his shoulders and deepened the kiss, parting his lips with a hungry stroke of her tongue. He moaned as she invaded his delicious mouth. She cupped his face so he could not turn away from her in all his blasted chivalry.

“You’re still holding back?” she whispered after a long moment, her heart pounding after that passionate kiss.

Finally, he blurted out what was bothering him. “I just can’t believe you’d still want me after what you saw me do up on that mountain.”

She lifted her eyebrows. “Is that what’s wrong?” Then she frowned, realizing that he felt exposed. “Surely you are not ashamed of it.”

“Not ashamed.” He shrugged, looking away. “But it is a bad business, and I wish you had not seen it. That’s all.”

“Gabriel, Leon prepared me for this, and so have all the losses I’ve known. These were evil men. They deserved what they got,” she answered in a hard tone. “And for my part, I shall never be too cowardly to look and see and know what you and all those like you sacrifice for people like me and for the greater good.”

He eyed her intently as he listened.

“What you make yourselves become may be dark and terrible, but it is beautiful at the same time, you know. Your selflessness, your courage. You are what the poets call sublime, my love. You see? I understand…you. And there is no part of you that I cannot love. I want all of you. Even your ferocity. Yes, I want that, too,” she whispered. “Let me taste it. I know you’d never hurt me.”

“Never,” he echoed hoarsely.

“I want to belong to you,” she murmured as she held him. “No matter what may lie ahead. I need you, Gabriel.” She paused for a long moment, staring into his eyes. “Make love to me.” She saw him hesitate one last time, but she clutched at his black jacket, pulling him closer. “Don’t push me away! Not even for honor’s sake. I know you will say I’m a princess, but I am still a human being—I’m a woman, and you are the man I love. My royal blood does not make me some divinity, above the needs that others feel. By God, if you can’t see past the crown, I will throw it away and go back to your farm with you, or India, or anywhere—”

“Don’t talk like that.”

“I don’t care,” she whispered in trembling defiance. “There is no point in anything if we are not together.”

“Then we shall be.” He drew her hands to him and placed one on his chest while he kissed the other in burning hunger. “Sophia, I want you so much.”

“Do you?”

“Love you,” he breathed against her fingertips.

“Yes. Take me to you, my wolf, my warrior. Lay me down.”

He raised her off his lap without another word and rose, leading her back into the cave.

The moment she followed him into the dimly lit intimacy of their shelter, he pulled her to him and swept her into his arms. As his mouth swooped down on hers, both of them were already on fire. Sophia moaned under his ravishing kiss while he dragged her clothes off her slowly and laid her down on the mound of furs.

She tore his jacket off his shoulders, but first he had to remove an assortment of holsters, sheaths, and his ammunition belt. When he had fought his way free of his personal arsenal, he ripped off his jacket and threw it against the wall. Sophia helped him with his black shirt. He peeled it off over his head and when he gathered her to him again, she whimpered with desire at the feel of his hot, bare skin against hers. The taut, supple power of his hard muscled chest against the yielding softness of her breasts seemed to entrance them both.

Sophia was so aroused she almost felt that she might faint. She relaxed more deeply into their primal bed while Gabriel kissed his way down her neck and made a feast of her body, on his hands and knees above her.

Her chest heaved and her skin tingled as his lips traveled down her chest, her waist, her hips and thighs, skimming every curve. She cried out in pleasure, arching under him as he claimed her swollen nipple; his hot, wet mouth kissed and sucked it firmly before moving to its twin. Mere moments had passed and he already had her writhing. She had not realized how much her body had hungered for him and savored the memory of his hands, or how well she had remembered the skills and sensations he had begun teaching her that night at the farmhouse. She was so ready for more.

She raked her fingers through his hair, letting him slide more deeply between her legs. His hand grazed expertly down her side. Somehow she was naked now except for the knife strapped to her thigh, but never breaking his kiss, his clever fingers unbuckled the strap and took her last defenses away. After setting her weapon aside, his hand returned to her thigh. Her heart slammed in her chest as his smooth touch ran up the inside of her leg. Gabriel all but sobbed with need as he found her core drenched with anticipation.

Kissing her with fierce, impassioned depth, he reached down and quickly unfastened his black leather riding breeches. Sophia helped him, caressing his waist; her hand glided downward over his taut, quivering abdomen, glorying in every chiseled ridge and steely contour. He reached back for the nearest blanket, pulling it up over them, while Sophia groaned as her wandering hand came to the thick base of his cock, sprung up huge and hard from amid the thatch of coarse hair at his groin.

Her hand closed around his shaft. He shuddered violently as she stroked upward. The length of him seemed never-ending, inch by inch, and she wanted it in her.

He let her play for a moment longer, but then, with an air of thrilling command, he captured her hands and gripped them gently above her head on the luxurious furs. He kissed her neck as he entered her slowly.

Her body accepted him with a hero’s welcome. He was burning and tense, as hard and as smooth as forged steel as he claimed her. She watched him helplessly, panting; the glance he gave her brimmed with so much pent-up need and emotion.

“Love you,” he breathed again as he lowered his head and glided his lips atop hers with a sweet, nuzzling kiss.

Sophia was dying for him. She knew that she had been made for this moment, this man.

His silken lips still lingering against hers, he paused when his luscious incursion reached her maidenhead.

But if Gabriel feared she was going to stop him, he was badly mistaken. He waited only long enough to afford her a brief chance to change her mind.

Her fingers splayed down his broad back and clutching at his burning shoulders gave him her answer, assuring him that she had no such intention. His chest heaved against hers; he lunged; she let out a small, fierce cry against his mouth, welcoming the pain of being joined to him at last.

He kissed her with slow, tender deliberation while she trembled beneath him, overwhelmed by the mix of pleasure, pain, and the heady knowledge that her mate had claimed her as his own. She had marked him with her virgin blood.

There was no turning back for them now.

He remained with her, still and gentle, holding her in the glorious safety of his arms. “I adore you,” he breathed.

She could not say why his tender whisper brought tears to her eyes, as if her heart was breaking. Or maybe it was finally being healed from so many losses, so many years of isolation. She could only pet him and hold him, too choked by the lump of emotion in her throat to utter more than his beloved name.
“Gabriel.”